Clinton: U.S. inks Iran sanctions draft

In a surprise move, the Obama administration unveiled a new draft Iran sanctions resolution to the full United Nations Security Council Tuesday that has the support of all five of its permanent members, including Russia and China.

The move, announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on START, signaled a sharp rebuke to a nuclear fuel deal unveiled by Turkey, Iran and Brazil in Tehran one day earlier — an agreement that seemed to endanger the possibility of meaningful sanctions on the Iranian regime.

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“I think this announcement is as convincing an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days as any we could provide,” Clinton said.

Susan Rice, the U.S. envoy to the U.N., introduced the Iran sanctions draft at a Tuesday afternoon Security Council meeting, noting that it was a consensus resolution already agreed to by the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Russia and China. Germany has also signed on.

The goals of the new resolution are “to increase the costs to Iran and its leadership for their defiance of the international community ... and to persuade them that it’s in their interest to work with the international community to resolve peacefully the concerns about their nuclear program,” a senior U.S. official told journalists in advance of the submission. “These sanctions will have an immediate chilling effect on Iran’s ability to move forward with its nuclear and ballistic missile program and to threaten its neighbors.”

The sanctions resolution “is not intended to hurt the people of Iran,” the official continued. “It is focused on the Iranian regime and its nuclear program.”

“Today, I am pleased to announce to this committee we have reached agreement on a strong draft with the cooperation of both Russia and China,” Clinton told the Senate panel. Russia and China have been, until recently, resistant to a new, fourth round of sanctions against Iran.

The agreement allows the administration to quickly turn the page after a day of diplomatic uncertainty prompted by the nuclear pact signed by Turkey, Iran and Brazil on Monday. Under that fuel swap deal, Iran would send about half of its known stockpile of low enriched uranium to Turkey and in return, receive higher enriched nuclear fuel cells for medical use within a year.

U.S. officials offered a decidedly chilly response to the deal, saying the Obama administration still has serious concerns about Iran’s nuclear program that the agreement would not address — most notably that it does not require Iran to stop higher enriching uranium, which Iran began to do in February. It also left Iran with enough fissile material that, if higher enriched to weapons grade, would be sufficient for a single nuclear weapon. Other major powers, including France and Russia, also expressed misgivings about the Brazilian-Turkish fuel swap agreement.

Consultations on the draft resolution were under way Monday, including during a meeting between visiting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, who has served as the U.S. point person in international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.

But most surprising is that the U.S. was able to keep China on board for a new U.N. Iran sanctions resolution after the fuel swap deal, given that China has consistently signaled its discomfort with economic sanctions and called for continued diplomatic efforts with Iran.